LongLeftFlank

Ha, deep in the mists of Forum history, I recall a certain Calgarian (long departed now from these shores) blowing a gasket over CMSF not providing ladders for top down assaults, or allowing squads the organic capability to breach and mousehole walls or buildings anywhere they damn please, enter via windows, etc.

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

Galeev backgrounder (short thread)
Punchline: 
1. This has nothing to do with "Russians protesting against Putin".
2. These are protests in an ethnic Turkic & Muslim region largely motivated by the disregard to local sacred places & ecology
3. And, to a certain degree, by the local nationalist sentiment
****
While I'm looking at Galeev:
 

Galeev backgrounder (short thread)
Punchline: 
1. This has nothing to do with "Russians protesting against Putin".
2. These are protests in an ethnic Turkic & Muslim region largely motivated by the disregard to local sacred places & ecology
3. And, to a certain degree, by the local nationalist sentiment
****
While I'm looking at Galeev:
 

Galeev backgrounder (short thread)
Punchline: 
1. This has nothing to do with "Russians protesting against Putin".
2. These are protests in an ethnic Turkic & Muslim region largely motivated by the disregard to local sacred places & ecology
3. And, to a certain degree, by the local nationalist sentiment
****
While I'm looking at Galeev:
 

Galeev backgrounder (short thread)
Punchline: 
1. This has nothing to do with "Russians protesting against Putin".
2. These are protests in an ethnic Turkic & Muslim region largely motivated by the disregard to local sacred places & ecology
3. And, to a certain degree, by the local nationalist sentiment
****
While I'm looking at Galeev:
 

Galeev backgrounder (short thread)
Punchline: 
1. This has nothing to do with "Russians protesting against Putin".
2. These are protests in an ethnic Turkic & Muslim region largely motivated by the disregard to local sacred places & ecology
3. And, to a certain degree, by the local nationalist sentiment
****
While I'm looking at Galeev:
 

Yes , but how that benefits Ukraine? Russia may buckle down in timespan of 5-10 years, but it will be enough to wear down its enemy before that time. Also Russia was never meant to be compoletelly isolated...one can see at Africa and Middle East, they don't seem to shrink their presence and have some undisputed successes, like pushing Frenchmen out of some African states. Hopefully temporarly; but it is sure entire world does not see Russia as a dead horse as we would like.
About US really exerting power we need to wait till elections...it seems for now it is USA that is much more undecided than Russia, with current champion for th seat calling Putin his buddy and that he will end war in 24h. Now it's Trump, so his hands may end in very different place than his mouth was, but who will sit in White House it will be deciding point of 2024 and likely this war. It is UA who is on trajectory for dramatically shrinked options in this phase rather than RU (unless muscovite economy is so bad it will somehow collapse earlier). If UA get lucky, they will play into another round and then perhaps Russia will face their own phase of doom and gloom.
On other side, they did arguably replugged what they could quite effectively regarding industry and bypassed sanctions wherever they could (Kazaklhstan noted something like 1000% yearly growth more in certain business areas). It can be argued that defeats already gave Russian military impulses for change in certain fields- namely, precision fires and specifically drones- that were unthinkable before 2022. Electronic Warfare is for example still their trump card and they produce enough missiles to sustain another air campaign (if it is really directed at achieving most effects is another matter).
There are pros and cons; I personally don't think we have enough non-anecdotal evidence to claim who is militarly on winning curve right now.
Well, this we actually know..."if it doesn't quacks like duck, doesn't walks like duck it probably simply isn't a duck ... If there would be massive examples of disobey, civil unrest and other signs of visible opposition for this war- we would surely see them by now. Several actions of extremelly few brave souls are noble, but don't change overal trajectory.
Well sure some sanctions are better than no sanctions, there is probably nobody here arguing that. It is also difficult to say if even in ideal world, with hardest, longest economcial stick from enraged West Russia could be isolated- world is simply to connected for it. But on other side, hoping sanctions and Russians  do something is not viable long-term strategy for victory. And certainly not the one that can be sold to keep Ukraine in game; a country that already face massive mobiliziation/morale problems at least as severe as Russian ones. Keeping national morale in Ukraine at stable level will likely be one of points of this game in 2024.
Exactly, also my talking point in this debates for something like last 1500 pages. That is why Prigozhin march was for population like watching two pokemons fighting on limited arena, not some existential thing like Russia suddenly breaking (even civil war) or even more phantstically, partitioning itself into regions, like some in western Hemisphere (and silently even some Ukrainians) seemed to expect. Nothing of this sort happened even around Wagner disobedience.
By means of "grudging, cursing and complaining" I meaned "social glue" and common human interactions that are thriving on it in Russia; yes, West managed to turn them into political arguments and ultimatelly define rules of civil society to tame them. It internalized, destilled and crucially politicized quarells as packages of issues (we call them ideas or values) to deal with in civilized way and go on. This is very different than post-Soviet way of complaining as social activity for sake of itself. And the latter one can be misleading for untrained eyes.
Ok, this is direction of this debate that ges nowhere- I was never sold for this "clueless Westerners and cassandric Eastern Europeans" narration nor propagated it here by any post; in fact I made several times a talking point we have in PL limited view of this conflict due to lack of nuclear perspective, like USA/Russia has. *
That being said- popular perception is what rules populations, and politians must hear their voters in long term. So about Russian will to continue war: yes, I think overal Western European public seriously underestimate role of certain areas of Russian psyche, while skipping over others. We literally observe how stereotypes are proven real on our eyes- Russians are throwing their males into meatgrinder with zeal that (most of) us would think impossible after WWII, without major sign of collapse, and seem to like it, or at the most- shrugg their shoulders. I tend to do a roundup over Russian infosphere  (pro-Z, "opposition" and most important one- people following nachuism- i.e. not caring about it at all) every month or so in more details, and sadly don't there any visible signs of breaking or serious discontent. Even smallest, frankly. Yeah, they complain that winter is harsh, eggs are pricely and officials are corrupt; but so what?
I mean, comme on- after two years they still take actual volunteers into Storm-Z detachments, where chances of survival are like playing (nomen omen) Russian rulette with single-shot breechloader. Nobody will convince me this is normal in non-existential, non-religious war, that has all its cruelties streamlined online like if dozen Hannibal Lecters would suddenly open own legal YT channels. And yet, they go.
 
* Btw. I am not Eastern European. I am Central one- that was formated by Latin culture and republicanism, very distinct from mix of orthodoxy and despotism that influenced (or was imposed on) terrains of modern Belarus, partly Ukraine and Balts...and Russia itself- the region we can correctly call Eastern Europe. This is common habit of throwing everyone east of Oder river into one sack "former Warsaw Pact". But historically, it isn't real.
That is good example of beformentioned misunderstanding...how many Russians not directly involved in war actually flew from windows (or met their deaths) since 2022? One dozen? Maybe two? Somebody important- an oligarch, his mistress or son? A politician perhaps? Nope. In Russian terms-often expressed in fears of real persecutions burned in their collective psyche by generations, with hot iron- Putin is still benevolent and very rational leader. It is his greatest claim to authority and fame; that is one of reasons he avoided mobilziation and wide repercussions for so long time, apart from material factors of course.
I didn't see yet any data regarding their spending on internal security alone...it is interesting issue we didn't discussed here, btw.
Oh, 100% agree it is not. But before it realizes it is in dark s..thole (and cause of whom), a lot of water in Volga will need to pass, like some old Russian writer told. Btw.- take adjustment on sheer size of this country; any social processess there takes very slow turn. UA doesn't have such comfort.
Yup, we - or rather Ukraine- are in clinch phase of conflict, at least till late spring. I am not at all in "doom and gloom" camp here, but frankly I am very concern by Kremlin's reading of events and overall attitudes in second half of 2023; they visibly managed to catch breath from something looking like deathspirall. Even Putin seems to be more and more frank with its population, calling SMO war pretty freely and admitting it will take at least 2-3 years of slaughter until West "come to its senses".
Anwyay, we will see. Both camps here are watching into tealeaves at the moment and hoping.

Note, these are AI-art. This is the guy who wound up the Twitter-arts world with hilariously banal AI reinterpretations of Hopper's 'Nighthawks', inspiring many other trolls....

 

Many years ago I worked on a space mission concept that was doing super high precision astrometry, that is, measurement of precisely where all the stars in the sky are and where they're going (because they're moving and we can measure sensitively enough to care).  It was science driven, but the Navy was working on a competing concept and I had to think for a while about why.  But it was a little after Gulf War 1, with all the precision bombing, and when I did the math on mapping the precision back to a sphere the size of the earth, it amounted to being able to aim not at a door (as they did in GW1, mostly with laser target painting), but at the doorknob using mapping and nav without needing a SOF guy with a laser.  And that was decades ago.
ISR+massed precision == just don't even try it
 
All of this is within the capability of existing technology.  Aircraft systems have been doing essentially this for kind of a long time (see above) with less compact equipment.  You can put a little LIDAR rangefinder on a rifle or a drone and couple it to precision GPS and compass.  The thing that makes your phone big is the need for you to see it and manipulate things on it with your fat fingers.  The size limiter on your proposal is probably the GPS antenna (small) and the laser optics (small).  It probably all exists in prototype somewhere, maybe linked to a VR goggle set that's linked to a local server so a whole squad or platoon can spread out and have borg spotting that's delivered to each other and the rear echelon with the action-at-a-long-distance stuff.
(ETA: you're not just coupling the GPS+compass to other hardware, but also to a detailed GIS model of the area that's enabled by the massive ISR cloud watching the whole thing)

Jake Sullivan, is that you?
(jk, welcome to the thread)

Jake Sullivan, is that you?
(jk, welcome to the thread)

Jake Sullivan, is that you?
(jk, welcome to the thread)

Jake Sullivan, is that you?
(jk, welcome to the thread)

It really is settling into a replay of the Western front in WW1.

Hey look at that.  So maybe we double down on what works and not what is getting blowed up six clicks from the front line? This situation is only going to get worse with drone numbers soaring.  The real question is whether or not someone can translate drone superiority into offensive success.  I am thinking the first side that can kill anything and everything in a 20km deep box and simply walk forward is going to win.

By the second winter, the boots had worn out...

Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900 mile long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering.

By the second winter, the boots had worn out...

Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900 mile long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering.

A good combat leader, leading from the front and doing what needs doing. That's a heavy loss for the Russians.
P.S. News YOU can use!
 

A good combat leader, leading from the front and doing what needs doing. That's a heavy loss for the Russians.
P.S. News YOU can use!
 

See my post above about Krynky assault. This is BMD-4M more likely. 104th air-assault division is on that direction, having some new BMD-4M and older BMD-2

By the second winter, the boots had worn out...

Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900 mile long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering.

By the second winter, the boots had worn out...

Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900 mile long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering.

By the second winter, the boots had worn out...

Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900 mile long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering.